O for the love of God

But, just so far as I love the world and the things that are in the world, I love God's enemy; I love a state of things which is in direct opposition to the revealed will of God; I forsake my banner and range myself under the opposite flag; I stand in the ranks of those who are fighting against God and against whom God fights; and by my love toward them, I show my approbation of their principles, their maxims, their pursuits, their customs, and their ways, and so in heart, if not in person, I side with those who lie under the wrath and condemnation of God.

This, then, is the reason why God bids me not love the world; for if I love the world, my heart declines from the strait and narrow path, slips into an easy groove, walks in compliance with those who are traveling down the broad road, and like Ephraim, though armed, turns back in the day of battle. God, therefore, by His inspired apostle, drops this caution in my ears, and O that God the Holy Spirit would convey it into my heart and yours in all its sacred light, life, and grace — "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.

If this precept is to be carried out, we must not love the men and women of the world; we must not love their company, nor seek and take a pleasure in their society. The calls and claims of business, and in most of your cases the daily duties of your vocation in life, may, and indeed must take you into the world. The professional man must attend to his clients or patients; the tradesman must wait upon his customers; the mechanic must work at the same bench with his mate; and even those of us who are not so engaged are sometimes obliged to transact with worldly characters.

But all this is a very different thing from loving their company and seeking their society.

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If your heart is under divine influence, the world will not hurt you so long as you do not mix with it more than you are absolutely compelled. We are not called to go out of the world and shut up ourselves in monasteries and nunneries. What we have to shun, is the company of the world on those occasions when it is not needed. Thus you need not go out of the world to be separated from it. You may be out of the world and love it; you may be in the world and hate it. It is where our heart is, where our affections are, and what we inwardly love, which shows whether we are of the world or not; for you will observe, that the main force of the precept lies in this, " Love not the world.

And why should John bid us so forcibly not to love it? For this simple reason, that love is the strongest passion of the human breast, and never can be satisfied without enjoyment and possession. If a man loves a thing, he will have it if he can, sooner or later, by hook or by crook, by foul means or by fair means. If he is desperately in love with an object, he is miserable until he gains it; for love is the strongest passion that moves the human breast. You all know this who have ever been, to use a common expression, "in love;" and, though this is especially true of the love which man has for woman and woman for man, it is also true of all other love, though not perhaps to the same intense degree.

If, therefore, a man loves the world, he is sure to be straining every nerve to get at, and to possess the object of his love; and nothing will satisfy him but the enjoyment of that upon which his heart is set. Now, viewing this love of the world as a disease, if we could find some mysterious remedy which would cure that propensity at the very root; if there were, say, some holy balm brought us by an angel from heaven, like the oil which, according to the Romish legend, was brought to anoint the kings of France, and we could drop, drop, drop it into the seat of all this worldly love and purge it out, cleanse, and remove it; and if, by the dropping in of this mysterious yet blessed oil, there could be communicated another love of a purer kind, of holier nature, which was fixed upon God Himself, and the things of God, how by this mysterious yet blessed remedy the disease would be removed, and how the love of the world would at once be purged out by the entrance of a better love, which would, so to speak, reach down to, and wither it, and put another in its place, as a new root.

It is in grace as in nature. A strong love will drive out a weak one. Take the instance of a young man or young woman who may have a kind of roving affection toward some object; but let another object come before them who is more attractive, more winning, more beautiful, or more engaging, and let that new object not merely strike the eye, but strike a root into the natural affections, the old object is immediately dropped, and the roving affections, at once center in the new object and there remain fixed and firm.

So it is in divine things. You have, by nature, a roving eye and roaming heart, ever roaming after this and that idol, and that lover. And thus you go on for months or years, roving in affection after a multitude of worldly objects. But you are arrested by the power of God. The arrows of conviction pierce your conscience — you are made to cry for mercy, and in due time the Lord reveals Himself with power in your soul. Now when the Lord is pleased thus to shed abroad His love in the heart by the Holy Spirit, and to drop into the bosom a holier and purer, because a heavenly and spiritual love, then those roving affections which were loosely roaming after every worldly object, are gathered up, and the love of God coming into the soul in divine power, sets before us Jesus as the only object of our love.

The Love of the World and the Love of God

It is thus that another higher, purer, and more powerful love cures and purges that love of the world which, though it pleased us in our carnal days, yet was found in the end to bring with it only misery, bondage, and death. You will observe that the precept takes a very wide range ; it says — "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. It stretches forth a hand of vast grasp. It places us, as it were, upon a high mountain, such as the Lord stood upon when tempted of Satan, and it says to us, "Look around you — now there is not one of these things which you must love.

And having thus set before us, as Satan did before our Lord upon the high mountain, the kingdoms of the world, it says, not as he did, "All this will I give you," but, "All this I take from you. None of these things are for you. You must not love one of these glittering baubles; you must not touch one of them, or scarcely look at them, lest, as with Achan, the golden wedge and the Babylonish garment should tempt you to take them and hide them in your tent.

The precept takes us through the world as a mother takes a child through a bazaar, with playthings and ornaments on every side, and says, "You must not touch one of these things.

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Take it first as a TEST. Some of you may say, "I am very fond of hearing the gospel faithfully preached, and I could willingly walk any distance to hear a sound, experimental minister, a real servant of Jesus Christ, who preached with savor, unction, and power. I have many years professed to know the things of God for myself, and I am very fond of hearing the truth set forth in accordance with my feelings. But words at best are but words; and many speak well with their lips who speak very badly with their feet.

Apply, then, this test to your heart and to your life. Do you love the world, the things of time and sense? Are they entwined round your affections? Do they occupy the chief place in your heart? What are your pursuits, when free to follow them? I say pursuits, for I do not mean necessary engagements. Who are your companions?

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Whose society do you prefer? That of the light, vain, and trifling, the carnal and the worldly, or the tried, afflicted, exercised children of God? What subject most engages your mind, occupies your thoughts, dwells with you night and day, is to you your all in all?

Is it the things of God, or the things of the world? What are you most bent upon attending to and acquiring? Is it the manifestation of the Lord's goodness and mercy, the breakings in of His pardoning love, the application of His atoning blood, the secret whispers of His favor to you, and the enjoyment of His presence? Or are you satisfied without these divine realities, and spend days and hours without ever longing after, or looking out for them? Now if so, the love of the Father is most certainly not in you. Talk as long and speak as loudly as you may about religion, this one thing will stamp "Tekel" upon it all.

Weighed in the balance it is found wanting — If you love the world, and the things that are in the world, the love of God is not in your heart. We all by nature love the world; and if you said you did not, I would not believe you, for I know you do. But is there no remedy for it? There is; and if you had it revealed to your heart you would find its effects. For what would the love of God do if it were in your heart? First, it would show you, by the contrast, what a wretched, ungodly, miserable world this is, and how different the love of God is from the love of the world.

It would teach you that we cannot love God and mammon; and that either the love of the world must prevail and shut out the love of God; or the love of God prevail and keep out the love of the world. Secondly, you would find very gracious fruits and effects springing from it. If the love of God were in your heart, it would spiritualize your mind; it would draw forth every tender affection of your soul; it would make you seek and love communion with God and His dear Son; it would make you love the word of God, and be, from time to time, searching the Scriptures to know the mind and will of God, that you might walk before Him in the light of His countenance.

You would also find, that all this would have a very separating effect upon your spirit, and would throw a great light upon what the world and the spirit of it really are; so that when you were forced unwillingly into it, you would continually sigh and say, "O, what a miserable world this is! I see nothing in it but sin and death, misery and bondage; and if I get entangled with the spirit of it, how it deadens my soul, canalizes my mind, robs me of every tender, gracious feeling, fills me with lightness and frivolity, and stamps inward death, darkness, and bondage upon my soul.

Now try this test by your own experience. You come from your chamber sometimes in the morning, with your mind in some measure fixed upon divine things. You have been favored during the night, or in getting up, or on your knees, or in reading a portion of the word, with some nearness to the Lord; and have felt a sweetness and blessedness in waiting upon Him. But you leave your peaceful home to follow the pursuits of your temporal calling; you go into the world, not willingly but of necessity, and mix with your fellow men.

O what a change from your feelings in your bedroom, and the savor of which still abides upon your spirit.

It is like going from day to night, or rather, from heaven to hell. What levity, what carnality, what worldly-mindedness, often what filthy and disgusting language, what a contempt of God's will and word, what dislike of His people and ways, and what a thorough determination to enjoy sin, cost what it will and may. What a poor, miserable creature do you feel yourself to be in such a scene and such society; and yet you cannot help saying to yourself, "O what a contrast! Am I, can I, be happy here? Do I feel at home with these wretched men and women? Is there any comfort to my soul in their society?

Do I feel I can join with them in their light, vain, and trifling conversation, and unite in spirit with their worldliness? O no, I feel I cannot do so; for what they hate I love, and what I love they hate. Does it not clearly show you what the world is, and does it not produce in your spirit such a separation from it, that you cannot but wonder at and adore the grace of God which has made such a difference between you and them? John goes on to unfold more fully and clearly what is in the world, that he may give us another reason why we should not love it, summing up the things of the world under these three pregnant and pointed heads — "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

The first is "the lust of the flesh. To write the love of God above Would drain the ocean dry. Nor could the scroll contain the whole, Though stretched from sky to sky. The beloved hymn The Love of God had its roots in a long Jewish poem written in the eleventh century in Germany.

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The Jewish poem, Hadamut , in the Aramaic language, has ninety couplets. The poem itself is in the form of an acrostic.

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4. Positive, Encouraging K-LOVE.
5. For the Love of God.
6. The love of God is greater far.

It was composed, in the year , by Rabbi Mayer, son of Isaac Nehorai, who was a cantor in the city of Worms, Germany. The Hadamut poem also speaks of a certain miracle. There are three opinions as to the contents of this miracle. The first opinion is that the miracle was the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai.

Incidentally, it is for this reason that the poem is still read on the first day of the Feast of Shavuot before the reading of the Ten Commandments. The second opinion simply states that we really cannot know with certainty, from the references, what the actual miracle was. The third opinion believes that the miracle took place in the city of Worms, home of the rabbi-poet.

It is thought that there was a medieval, German priest who once spoke evil of the Jewish community. The king called upon the Jews of the city to produce a representative to argue and defend themselves against the priest. For example, "Should I ask her to the dance? For the sake of; in consideration for: By clicking "Post Your Answer", you acknowledge that you have read our updated terms of service , privacy policy and cookie policy , and that your continued use of the website is subject to these policies.

Home Questions Tags Users Unanswered. I know it's used to implore someone, for instance: But what "love of God" is being referred to here? What did your research show about this? Didn't think I'd actually be able to find anything by researching it on my own - maybe next time I'll try just in case!

If you exhort someone to do a particular thing, and use this phrase, you mean Don't do it for me. The question comes down to: Does 'love of God' mean the love given by God or the love given to God? Your answer, informative as it is , is not yet answering that.

Keepthesemind - When people use this phrase, in a context such as the one provided in the question, they are probably not consciously thinking about God.